Thunder Island (1963)

Directed by Jack Leewood. Starring Gene Nelson, Brian Kelly, Míriam Colón, Fay Spain, Art Bedard, Esther Sandoval, Antonio Torres Martino.

Nelson’s hitman is hired by Colón to assassinate a deposed Central American dictator in this B-programmer. Predictable and unremarkable, but it’s pacy and terse enough as far as these kinds of low-budget time-killers go. Puerto Rican trailblazer Colón deserved the spotlight far more than the banal American couple (Kelly, Spain) that gets swept up in the danger and intrigue. Of interest only for being co-written by a then-little-known actor named Jack Nicholson.

45/100